Disease ID, need advice !

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MikeLeMike

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Acton Vale, Qc, Canada
Hello friends, I am new to this forum and I come seeking advise.

I am worried about my new male apistogramma cacatuoides I recently bought. He has been doing good. Feeding frozen foods from hakari and northfins pellets. He's eating well for the last few weeks, but I noticed this week a swollen bump in the anal/vent area appeared.

I am uncertain if this could be worms of some sort and how to threat it ?

I know he has recently fertilized the eggs of a female because, I saw female guarding wigglers. Could that be a cause ?

Here are some pictures. Thanks for the help.
IMG_20201119_162513-min.jpg
IMG_20201119_162535-min.jpg
IMG_20201119_162211-min.jpg
 
It could be thread/ round worms (camallanus) or part of his intestine is sticking out his butt.

His body colour is also wrong and looks white under the skin. This could be a microsporidian infection or he is just sick.

It wouldn't hurt to treat them for worms, and you can add some salt to try and treat the microsporidian infection, assuming it is one. Either way the salt and dewormer won't hurt the fish. You can use salt with deworming medications.

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WORMS
Intestinal Worms like tapeworm and threadworms cause the fish to lose weight, continue eating and swimming normally, and do a stringy white poop. Fish can do this for months and not be too badly affected. In some cases, fish with a bad worm infestation will actually gain weight and get fat and look like a pregnant guppy. This is due to the huge number of worms inside the fish.

You can use Praziquantel to treat tapeworm and gill flukes. And Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms. If you can't find these medications, look for Flubendazole, which treats both lots of worms.

Remove carbon from filters before treatment and increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

You treat the fish once a week for 4 weeks. The first treatment will kill any worms in the fish. The second, third and forth treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs inside the fish's digestive tract.

Treat every fish tank in the house at the same time to prevent cross contamination.

You do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment. Clean the filter 24 hours after treatment too.

Do not use the 2 medications together. If you want to treat both medications in a short space of time, use Praziquantel on day one. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate on day 2 & 3. Treat the tank with Levamisole on day 4 and do a 75% water change and gravel clean on day 5, 6 & 7 and then start with Praziquantel again on day 8.

The water changes will remove most of the medication so you don't overdose the fish the next time you treat them. The gravel cleaning will suck out any worms and eggs that have been expelled by the fish. Repeating the treatment for 3-4 doses at weekly intervals will kill any worms that hatch from eggs. At the end of the treatment you should have healthier fish.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
 
It could be thread/ round worms (camallanus) or part of his intestine is sticking out his butt.

His body colour is also wrong and looks white under the skin. This could be a microsporidian infection or he is just sick.

It wouldn't hurt to treat them for worms, and you can add some salt to try and treat the microsporidian infection, assuming it is one. Either way the salt and dewormer won't hurt the fish. You can use salt with deworming medications.

Indeed, I was thinking of trying Lavamisol. My only hope is of actually finding some powder. Since I am in Québec, finding fish medication is a pain in the butt. I'll try ebay and hope customs don't confiscate !
 
Stock feeders used to carry it, otherwise see if you can get flubendazole from the US.

Other products found in Europe (not sure if available in Canada) include:
eSHa gdex, contains praziquantel that treats tapeworm and gill flukes.
eSHa-ndx, contains levamisole and treats thread/ round worms.
NT Labs Anti-fluke and Wormer, contains flubendazole.
Kusuri wormer plus, (contains flubendazole) - sold mainly for discus, comes as a powder which is quite hard to dose in smaller tanks
Sera nematol, (contains emamectin)
 
Stock feeders used to carry it, otherwise see if you can get flubendazole from the US.

Other products found in Europe (not sure if available in Canada) include:
eSHa gdex, contains praziquantel that treats tapeworm and gill flukes.
eSHa-ndx, contains levamisole and treats thread/ round worms.
NT Labs Anti-fluke and Wormer, contains flubendazole.
Kusuri wormer plus, (contains flubendazole) - sold mainly for discus, comes as a powder which is quite hard to dose in smaller tanks
Sera nematol, (contains emamectin)
I just found a canadian site that has this Flubendazole based medication ! Going to order and start a salt treatment also.

 
Just started a course too. Had to remove amanos, cherry’s, Nerite and assassins. How long can the snails host camullanus? At what point would it be safe to return them to main tank? Thanks
 
Just started a course too. Had to remove amanos, cherry’s, Nerite and assassins. How long can the snails host camullanus? At what point would it be safe to return them to main tank? Thanks
From what I've read, this stuff can remain in tanks for pretty long, up to 12 months. Although I am not sure. I started the treatment today. My biggest concern is for the apisto fry in my tank, I do hope they survive the treatment. Sorry I can't help you much more then that.
 
It should be totally fish safe so hopefully they will be ok :). Oh well if that’s the case they can stay in the other tank for the forseable future!
 
I think that adding carbon to the filtration after the treatment would help you. For a week or 2, it would probably solve your issue and absorb all the stuff left in your tank. Thats what most people do post medical treatment.
 
Seems sensible! I’m just worried the snails will act as a vector and bring it straight back in again.
 

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